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Internationalization has emerged as a vital catch-up strategy for firms in emerging markets. Although external knowledge search has been widely acknowledged as an important way within the internationalization process, there appear to be opposing views as to whether local or international knowledge search contributes more for firms’ internationalization. This paper aims to integrate organizational ambidexterity and external knowledge search theory to define the concept of external knowledge search ambidexterity and empirically test the impact of the balance dimension of external knowledge search ambidexterity and combined dimension of external knowledge search ambidexterity on internationalization and the moderating effect of organizational slack and environmental munificence.

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Based on survey data of 219 Chinese manufacturing firms, the authors find that both relative balance and combined dimensions of external knowledge search ambidexterity are positively associated with internationalization. Organizational slack and environmental munificence both negatively moderate the relationship between balance dimension of external knowledge search ambidexterity and internationalization, both positively moderate the relationship between combined dimension of external knowledge search ambidexterity and internationalization.

It is essential for managers to take different external knowledge sources into consideration, so as to both maximize revenues and profits from advanced technological knowledge and foreign marketing knowledge in foreign markets and geographic proximity advantages in local market, while minimizing the risks of lacking of adaptive capacity for lacking of knowledge about international markets and cost of coordination and communication because of long geographical distance and cultural difference.

The findings help us better understand the knowledge seeking activities of emerging economy multinationals by proposing that the balance and combination of local and international knowledge search both can promote internationalization, especially on the background of China. The results also enrich the organizational ambidexterity research and extend it to external knowledge search field.

This study aims to analyze the moderating effect of managerial discretion on the relationship between cross-border knowledge search and the high-tech firms’ innovation quality in a global health emergency and addresses the following issues: the influence mechanism of different types of cross-border knowledge search on the high-tech firms’ innovation quality in a global health emergency; and the moderating role of different dimensions of manager discretion on the above relationship.

Based on the firms’ strategy selection methods, the authors divided cross-border knowledge search into three aspects, namely, breadth, depth and balance, and analyzed the impact of cross-border knowledge search on the innovation quality of high-tech firms in a global health emergency, taking managerial discretion as the moderating variable, and divided it into position rights, pay rights and operation rights according to the key rights of firms’ strategic management. Furthermore, the authors constructed a theoretical model, and for an analysis sample, the authors collected data from Chinese high-tech firms from 2013 to 2021.

The empirical results show that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between cross-border knowledge search breadth, depth and balance and the innovation quality of high-tech firms. The position rights, pay rights and operation rights of managerial discretion have partially significant moderating effects on the relationship between cross-border knowledge search breadth, depth and balance and the high-tech firms’ innovation quality.

Considerable literature has grown around the theme of the impact of knowledge search on the firms’ innovation quality. Nevertheless, only a few studies draw on the combination of global health emergency, cross-border knowledge search and the innovation quality; in particular, no literature has analyzed the relationship between the three from the managerial discretion perspective. Exploring the above relationships has great theoretical value for enriching and improving knowledge management and innovation management theories and provides a theoretical basis and practical support for high-tech firms to face challenges of a global health emergency and to break through the innovation dilemma.

Knowledge search is considered a broad concept and semi-intentional behavior. The path and boundary conditions through which search strategies affect intra-organizational knowledge creation remain elusive. Drawing on recombinant search theory and knowledge-based view, the authors seek to identify knowledge complexity as an important intermediate variable between knowledge search and innovation performance, such as research and development (R&D) output and R&D output quality. A second goal of this study is to examine the moderating roles of government support and technological turbulence.

The authors employed a longitudinal panel of 609 global pharmaceutical firms and obtained the firms' patent records from 1980 to 2015 for the analysis. The authors used generalized estimating equations (GEE) to evaluate the models and tested the consistency via panel fixed-effects estimations.

The authors' findings show that organizational routine-guided search has a negative effect on knowledge complexity, while routine-changing search exerts a positive impact on knowledge complexity. Governmental support and technological turbulence moderate these relationships. Notably, knowledge complexity has an inverted U-shaped relationship with innovation performance.

The authors' research context, the pharmaceutical industry, may constrain the generalizability of our findings. In addition, potential types of routine-guided and routine-changing search behaviors were not considered.

Despite these limitations, this study offers important implications. First, knowledge complexity transmits the effects of knowledge search on innovation performance. Practitioners should balance routine-guided and routine-changing search processes to build and manage complex knowledge. Second, a moderate level of knowledge complexity is the key to good R&D output and R&D output quality.

The study identifies knowledge complexity as one important intermediate variable between knowledge search behaviors and intra-organizational knowledge creation.

External knowledge is a key resource for the success and the survival of born global firms; however, existing models provide minimal evidence on how these firms should source this knowledge resource. Thus, the purpose of this research is to increase understanding on the impact of diverse knowledge search and knowledge formal protection in international new ventures (INVs).

The study uses a quantitative methodology based on a sample of start-ups from the Spanish Community Innovation Survey data. Using ordinary least squares regressions on a 10-year period panel data, this research tests the moderator role of a heterogeneous base of international partners and formal knowledge appropriation strategy on the relationship between start-ups and their export performance.

The results show that compared to non-born global start-ups, born global firms benefit more from establishing relationships with a set of heterogeneous international partners. By contrast, all start-ups benefit from an extensive appropriation strategy if they establish such alliances with diverse international partners.

The study extends current theory on international entrepreneurship by providing a new theoretical framework for INVs of both the extensive use of formal mechanisms of knowledge protection and the access to heterogeneous and distant knowledge. This study has also several implications for knowledge management domain.

This study aims to explore the impact of organizational search (local and boundary-spanning search) on business model innovation (efficiency-centered/novelty-centered business model innovation) and the moderating role of knowledge inertia between them.

The relationships are examined through data provided by a sample of Chinese firms and by multiple hierarchical regressions.

Local search has a stronger effect on efficiency-centered business model innovation, whereas boundary-spanning search plays a stronger role in novelty-centered business model innovation. Knowledge inertia strengthens the effect of local search on efficiency-centered business model innovation but weakens the effect of boundary-spanning search on efficiency-centered business model innovation and the effect of local search on novelty-centered business model innovation.

The findings enable firms’ managers to understand the subtle ways in which organizational search interacts with knowledge inertia to affect business model innovation and may help them to make knowledge management efforts to harvest the full value of organizational search.

Previous studies have not examined the effect of different organizational search on different business model innovation from knowledge management perspective. With knowledge inertia as the moderator, the results reveal the contingent impact mechanism of organizational search on business model innovation, the findings provide fresh evidence that can bridge the gap between knowledge management and business model innovation.

While the growth of emerging technologies like Blockchain has created significant market opportunities and economic incentives for firms, it is valuable for both researchers and practitioners to understand their creation mechanisms. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned objective.

Based on the knowledge search perspective, this study examines the impact of search boundary on innovation novelty and quality. Additionally, innovation targets, namely R&D innovation and application innovation, are proposed as the moderator of the knowledge search effect. Using a combination of machine learning algorithms such as natural language processing and classification models, the authors propose new methods to measure the identified concepts.

The empirical results of 3,614 Blockchain patents indicate that search boundary enhances both innovation novelty and innovation quality. For R&D innovation, the positive impact of search boundary on innovation quality is enhanced, whereas for application innovation, the positive effect of search boundary on innovation novelty is improved.

This study mainly contributes to the growing literature on emerging technologies by describing their creation mechanisms. Specifically, the exploration of R&D and application taxonomy enriches researchers' understanding of knowledge search in the context of Blockchain invention.

The purpose of this paper is to offer an integrative model of foreign market learning, including different learning processes, antecedents and outcomes.

The paper makes a critical review of the relevant literature, drawing on a keywords-based search of three major databases and a range of other published work for a broader perspective on the subject.

The resulting integrative model shows in a number of ways how companies can learn and benefit from differences in foreign markets and what results this can lead to.

The sample of subject-specific contributions to the literature may have been insufficient, and a wider selection of keywords to identify them might have captured a richer variety of concepts and opinions.

The integrative model contributes to the literature on foreign market learning and innovation and serves as a basis for future studies and current management strategy.

Technical knowledge is a key factor in firm innovation. This study aims to construct a theoretical framework of technological boundary-spanning search, exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation to help firms adjust their search strategies and improve the effect of external resources on internal innovation.

The study uses questionnaires to collect data and conducts empirical analysis using SPSS25 and AMOS24.

Technological boundary-spanning search is positively correlated with ambidextrous innovation. Additionally, knowledge base positively moderates the effect of technological boundary-spanning search on ambidextrous innovation and knowledge distance negatively moderates the effect of technological boundary-spanning search on ambidextrous innovation. When a firm’s knowledge base is robust, its ambidextrous innovation can benefit more from technological boundary-spanning search. Additionally, when the knowledge distance is less, a firm’s ambidextrous innovation can benefit more from technological boundary-spanning search.

Considering organizational ambidexterity, this study divides firm innovation into exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation and presents a theoretical framework for the effect of technological boundary-spanning search on ambidextrous innovation. Additionally, it provides a comprehensive understanding of the crucial roles of knowledge base and knowledge distance in the relationship between technological boundary-spanning search and exploratory and exploitative innovation.

The purpose of this study is to examine the potential process through which leadership exerts impacts on organizational innovation. A thorough analysis was conducted by highlighting the contribution of ambidextrous leadership to organizational innovation.

Data were collected from companies located in mainland China. A total of 200 cases were included in the final sample. Hierarchical regression analysis was adopted to test the hypotheses in this study.

The results showed that exploitation knowledge search and exploration knowledge search partly mediated the relationship between ambidextrous leadership and organizational innovation, respectively. Strategic flexibility could positively moderate the relationship between exploitation knowledge search and organizational innovation and had no significant impacts on moderating the relationship between exploration knowledge search and organizational innovation.

In this study, not only were managers provided with a sophisticated understanding of how and when ambidextrous leadership could influence organizational innovation but also concrete strategies were given for enhancing organizational innovation.

In this study, the interaction among ambidextrous leadership, knowledge search and organizational innovation were elucidated and the moderating impacts of strategic flexibility on the relationship between knowledge search and organizational innovation were explored. The findings of this study enriched the literature on leadership, knowledge management and innovation.

The authors attempt to answer the basic questions: How is imitation tied to innovation? This question is addressed in the context of China's innovation system in the 2000s where Chinese industrial firms simultaneously implement innovation and imitation strategies in their new product developments.

The authors first build on lattice theory and supermodularity theory to provide a rigorous and careful mathematical proof. The authors further conduct the empirical analyses using an original data on Chinese manufacturing firms' innovation and imitation strategies in the development of new products in 2002.

This article reveals the complementarity relation between imitation and innovation strategies and identifies external knowledge search as the boundary condition that influences the extent to which two strategies reinforce each other.

The findings of the imitation-innovation complementarity suggest that imitation is not only an indispensable strategy independent of innovation, but also is vital to the effectiveness of innovation itself.

The imitation-innovation complementarity finding provides some evidence for the contention that Chinese latecomers exploit the synergies of imitation and innovation, transforming themselves from imitators to innovators and vibrant competitors in the global market (Wu et al., 2016) and, as a result, national innovation system has evolved from a state-sponsored imitation program to the imitation-innovation mixture.

In contrast to earlier innovation studies in which innovation and imitation are unrelated, this study reveals that imitation complements innovation, and the extent of Chinese firms' external knowledge search affects the complementary relationship between imitation and innovation. These findings add important insights to the innovation management literature and contribute empirical evidence to the interplay of innovation and imitation enhancing national innovation system.